Adil Najam
Former Prime Minister and PML(N) leader Nawaz Sharif is back in Pakistan.
Reportedly he landed in Lahore to a large reception by his supporters and was escorted to a special bullet proof car that had been brought for him. According to The News:
A special plane carrying the PML-N Chief Nawaz Sharif, his brother Shahbaz Sharif and other family members arrived in Lahore from the holy city of Madina on Sunday evening. The convoys of PML-N workers arrived in Lahore to accord rousing welcome to Sharifs. Large welcome banners and pictures of Sharif brothers have been displayed at several places in Lahore. The special plane Boeing777 carried Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif along with 26 members of their family from the holy city of Madina.
The central and provincial leaders of PML-N, lawyers and members of civil society have arrived to receive Sharifs at Lahore Airport. Nawaz Sharif is expected to first visit Data Darbar in a procession and address a public meeting. Security had been tightened in Lahore especially on the airport ahead of arrival of the PML-N leader. Provincial home department has allowed only hundred party leaders to receive Sharifs at the airport, party sources claimed.
According to sources, bullet-proof cars for Sharifs reached in Lahore last night from Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, the home department said that the authorities have decided to give free hand to Nawaz Sharif but he has not been permitted for holding a public meeting and rally.
Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and other family members will be transported to home from the airport, a home department statement said. However, thousands of PML-N workers succeeded in arriving airport by crossing the barricades put up by police. On this occasion, the workers raised slogans both in favour of Nawaz Sharif and against the government.
Readers would remember from our prior posts that in August the Supreme Court of Pakistan had ruled that he could, in fact, return to Pakistan despite whatever ‘deal’ he had made with Gen. Musharraf at teh time of his original flight to Saudi Arabia. However, when he did return to the country in September, he was unceremoniously and dramatically deported back to Saudi Arabia with theatrics which rivaled his own attempts not to let Gen. Musharraf land in Pakistan many moons ago.
Now it turns out that he has made yet another ‘deal’ with Gen. Musharraf which has enabled his return.
It is not fully clear what the ‘terms’ of this deal are. Nor what the Musharraf-Nawaz Sharif deal mean
s for the earlier Musharraf-Benazir deal that had enabled her return some weeks back. Nor, in fact, is it clear what what his return (and the fact that now both Benazir and Nawaz Sharif are back in Pakistan) will mean for the future of Pakistan’s politics and the (supposed) forthcoming elections.
In despair, one even wonders if it means anything at all? Or is this just one more drama in the string of topi dramas that have come to define our distraught and fractured polity?
I find the lions amusing, especially as Nawaz has a brand new mane:) This is the same guy who was buying mattresses in New York, while India-Pakistan were at war in Kargil.
Yes , and I was also surprised to see NS remark
“he hopes Judges will be restored in one or two weeks”
see here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2007/11/0 71127_nawaz_judges_as.shtml
I believe if somehow miracle happens and these judges are reinstated then this will be a giant step in the history of Pakistan, at the moment I am content with General doffing his uniform tomorrow :).
pejamistri:
I agree with you. The pressure is so much the NS today met former justices of the SC and has decided not to pitch any candidate against Aitezaz Ahsan and also visited his house today.
Ahmad Rashid:
We are seeing a lot of unthinkables at the moment in our society. Sometimes history takes centuries to move a step further and then sometimes it covers miles in a single generation. If I am optimistic I would say that this generation is going to see many changes in the Pakistan. Other day I was dreaming that “15 years down the road I might be showing pictures of this struggle to my 20 year old son (who is 5 now), and telling him how people fought for their fundamental rights and how they created a society of “rule of law” by struggling against their own army”.
But again I may be wishful. However one thing is for sure a significant step has already been taken.
aqil,
i am not sure you are aware of ramifications of default. musharraf took over when pak had declared a debt moratorium i.e. pak had told creditors that it could not pay interest on loans it had borrowed. also during that time, pak was running significant current account deficit and it had minimal currency reserves. in this situation when pak could not borrow money to finance current account defict, state bank had no option but to let rupee depreciate in order to
discourage imports. situation however changed after 9/11 because u.s. govt helped pak government to restructure its debt which gave state bank and the government room to put economic house in order. if you look at second graph, you
will see that pkr started appreciating very soon after u.s. declared its intentions to help pak. since musharraf was not responsible for either debt accumalation or for moratorium, he cant be held responsible for the weakening of pkr for the first two years of his rule. however once, his government was able to resturcture the debt, performance of the rupee improved dramatically.
this is in contrast to the situation in the 90’s when rupee continued to weaken despite govt borrowing large sums of money. as i have pointed out in an earlier post, pak borrowed around $25bn dollars in the 90’s and yet ended in an economic mess. and no nuclear explosion did not contribute to the problems because if govt had not been corrupt and incompetent, it could have easily withstood the impact of
nuclear explsion much in the same manner that india did. just to rmind you india went nearly bankrupt in early 90’s but was able to bounce back. pak on the other hand was in a much stronger position than india in early’s 90’s but things
went down the gutter for pak due to mismanagement and corruption under bb/ns.